Seminoles Men's Tennis Season Ends With 4-1 Loss

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The No. 33 Florida State men’s tennis season ended with a 4-1 loss to No. 18 Cal on Friday at the Ring Tennis Complex on the campus of the University of Florida. The Seminoles finished the year with an 18-11 record while Cal increased to 15-9.

“I felt like Cal played a really good match,” said head coach Dwayne Hultquist. “They won it at a spot or two that I thought we had chance. I think that was the key to the match. It’s a very bright future for our team with having three sophomores and a freshman in our line-up, especially with the emergence of Dominic at number one and Benjamin at number two. I think we played in a very difficult region and certainly the winner of this region will represent well at the final site.”

The Seminoles came out hard battling in doubles going back-and-forth across the courts. The Seminoles started out with a win on court one with No. 14 Dominic Cotrone and Blake Davis winning on court one over No. 26 Campbell Johnson and Christoffer Konigsfeldt 8-4.

At that point Cal just played better in the later part of the matches winning on court two 8-5 over Anderson Reed and Jordan Kelly-Houston and on court three over Andres Bucaro and Michael Rinaldi 8-4.

“I thought we could have won the doubles even without playing Benjamin Lock,” said Hultquist. “It’s been a good point for us all year. We got off to an early break at one doubles and were on serve on two and even broke back on three but Cal stepped up and closed it out.”

In singles play, the Golden Bears stormed the courts fast winning five of the six first sets. Freshman Cristian Gonzalez Mendez was off the courts first losing 6-4, 6-1 on court five to Mads Engsted. At this point, the Seminoles started bouncing back by coming back in the second sets.

The sophomore Cotrone, the No. 92 player in the nation, upset No. 38 Ben McLachlan on court one 7-5, 6-3 to put the Seminoles on the board. However Florida State was unable to capitalize on the win as both seniors Kelly-Houston and Reed fell short losing their matches.

“I was pleased with the effort of Dominic today,” concluded Cotrone. “He had a very good win over No. 38 Ben McLachlan today. He’s been very strong late in the season with lots of top 50 wins. I’m very proud of the effort Ben gave today being sick and giving it a great go. He was serving for the first set and was in position to take his match to three sets.”

For more information, check back to Seminoles.com. You can also follow the team at Twitter.com/FSU_MTennis.

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